Alberta Wildfire Burn Scar Seen From Space

The damage caused by the huge wildfire can be seen from space. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on NASA's Landsat 8 satellite acquired this image of the burn scar on 12 May 2016. The false-color image combines shortwave infrared, near infrared, and green light (OLI bands 7-5-3). Courtesy: NASA

Thousands of oilsands workers north of Fort McMurray in Canada need to be evacuated as a shift in the huge Alberta wildfire burning out of control has put the camps where they stay at risk.

The damage caused by the huge wildfire can be seen from space. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite acquired this image of the burn scar on 12 May 2016. The false-color image combines shortwave infrared, near infrared, and green light (OLI bands 7-5-3). Near- and short-wave infrared help penetrate clouds and smoke (white) to reveal the hot spots associated with active fires (red). With this combination, burned areas appear brown. As of May 12, fires in that part of Alberta had burned up at least 2,410 square kilometers (930 square miles) of land.